California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges • Hacker News Board

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#131

Post by ryandrake » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 6:38 AM UTC

standardUser wrote: post #3

California shut down very hard and fast. When they reopened, nearly 100% of the population was still susceptible to the virus, so it spread like wildfire. Especially since the reopening was not exactly slow. Compare this to the Northeast and much of Western Europe where the virus spread too quickly until lockdowns reduced the spread. Now, keeping the transmission rate low in those areas has become comparatively easy,…

As someone with weak lungs and a weak immune system, how about we not deliberately let the virus spread, mmmkay? That would be really super. How about, instead, we actually implement a Stay At Home order with teeth and enforcement, and actually try to wait this out until a vaccine becomes available. Unlike what we did which was an overtly unenforced Stay At Home Suggestion that people predictably ignored..

> Part of why I make this strange argument is because CA seems to have endured a lockdown for virtually no gains.

California never implemented a lockdown. The people staying home did so voluntarily, but the rest were out horsing around as usual doing whatever non-essential tasks they could find among what businesses they could find that were also defying the "order". Putting everyone else at risk who had to step out to do actual essentials like limited grocery shopping.

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#132

Post by cameldrv » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 6:45 AM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #51

morsch wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We keep hearing about how this trend will reverse soon, ("two weeks from now"), but that hasn't happened yet. It happened a week ago. It's easier to see when you look at a moving average. https://imgur.com/a/xGLRjGa https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-daily-deaths-trajec...

Yes, there's a blip at the end of the chart. But the headline is clearly that deaths have fallen ~70% even as total (reported) cases has continued to grow exponentially.

3 weeks ago there was a blip at the end of the cases chart just like this one. You don't need to be a super genius to understand that the growth rate in deaths is roughly going to lag the growth rate in cases by about the amount of time it takes someone to die, which is about 3 weeks.

3 weeks from today we will have about 2200 deaths per day, based on the 7 day moving average.

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#133

Post by cjsplat » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 7:31 AM UTC

banads wrote: post #72

CerealFounder wrote: post #28

I dont understand for the life of me why the state cant get tough on masks and distancing with the rule of law. All they do is put out suggestions and guildelines. Until they flex the guidlines with some muscle it's just theatre

Why doesn't the state also mandate exercise, diet, and sleep?

States have existing laws about controlling diseases.

      https://www.ncsl.org/research/health/state-quarantine-and-isolation-statutes.aspx

If you want to advocate for additional science based health laws, go ahead.

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#134

Post by trevyn » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 9:12 AM UTC

ScottBurson wrote: post #107

standardUser wrote: post #3

California shut down very hard and fast. When they reopened, nearly 100% of the population was still susceptible to the virus, so it spread like wildfire. Especially since the reopening was not exactly slow. Compare this to the Northeast and much of Western Europe where the virus spread too quickly until lockdowns reduced the spread. Now, keeping the transmission rate low in those areas has become comparatively easy,…

It's easy to be misled by the nature of exponential growth. In most people's vocabularies these days, the term seems to mean just "very fast", but correctly understood, it's more specific and more complex than that. Exponential growth, in this context, means that the rate of new infections is proportional to the number of existing infections. This cuts both ways: when the number of existing infections is large, the r…

The visual “knee” is purely a result of your chosen scale; there is no scale-independent mathematical definition.

Put it on a log/log chart, and it’s a straight line; no part of the growth is qualitatively different than any other.

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#135

Post by hatenberg » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 10:22 AM UTC

standardUser wrote: post #8

pmoriarty wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Perhaps California could have attempted a middle ground strategy. Let the virus spread just a slight amount more than occurred during the initial lockdown in order to gradually spread immunity." It's not even clear yet whether exposure to this virus confers immunity, nor how long such immunity would last if it does exist. From the newest episode of This Week in Virology [1]: Daniel Griffin: The tough thing, right, i…

Though it has not been conclusively proven, literally all signs point to meanginful immunity and virtually no signs point to the opposite. Dozens of vaccines are being developed on this assumption, and there have been zero confirmed instances of reinfection of a fully recovered individual.

This comment has not aged well at all with several study preprints released in the last 12h indicating rapid loss of immunity and secondary infections

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#136

Post by technics256 » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 10:55 AM UTC

hatenberg wrote: post #135

standardUser wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though it has not been conclusively proven, literally all signs point to meanginful immunity and virtually no signs point to the opposite. Dozens of vaccines are being developed on this assumption, and there have been zero confirmed instances of reinfection of a fully recovered individual.

This comment has not aged well at all with several study preprints released in the last 12h indicating rapid loss of immunity and secondary infections

Do you have a source?

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#137

Post by ScottBurson » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 11:01 AM UTC

trevyn wrote: post #134

ScottBurson wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to be misled by the nature of exponential growth. In most people's vocabularies these days, the term seems to mean just "very fast", but correctly understood, it's more specific and more complex than that. Exponential growth, in this context, means that the rate of new infections is proportional to the number of existing infections. This cuts both ways: when the number of existing infections is large, the r…

The visual “knee” is purely a result of your chosen scale; there is no scale-independent mathematical definition. Put it on a log/log chart, and it’s a straight line; no part of the growth is qualitatively different than any other.

I'm well aware of that -- except that an exponential is a straight line on a semi-log chart. But to people hearing the numbers, who aren't familiar with the phenomenon of exponential growth, a linear scale, despite being somewhat arbitrary, better captures the psychological impact. Consider an idealized example: we start with one case, and a doubling time of three days. It takes the whole first month to get to about 1000 cases. Even though you and I know that that's an extremely aggressive growth rate, 1000 cases still doesn't sound like a lot to many people, when they compare it to the population of the US (or annual numbers of deaths from various other causes, like swimming pool accidents -- a comparison I've actually heard made). In the next month, though, it would get to 1M cases, which is a much larger fraction of the population and is correspondingly likelier to get people's attention.

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#138

Post by kalleboo » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 11:09 AM UTC

TomVDB wrote: post #21

standardUser wrote: post #3

California shut down very hard and fast. When they reopened, nearly 100% of the population was still susceptible to the virus, so it spread like wildfire. Especially since the reopening was not exactly slow. Compare this to the Northeast and much of Western Europe where the virus spread too quickly until lockdowns reduced the spread. Now, keeping the transmission rate low in those areas has become comparatively easy,…

> ... but any amount of immunity in a population makes transmission of the virus more difficult. That may be true from a pure logical/mathematical point of view, but that doesn't mean it makes a practical difference. Herd immunity is something that happens when a very large percentage of the population is immune. For mumps (which has a very high R0), you need about 92% immunity level for it to be effective. For COVID…

In Sweden none of the studies have shown immunity levels anywhere near that high, but ICU cases and deaths are trending down sharply, despite people getting tired of social distancing (BLM protests, high school graduation parties, midsummer parties all happened with no corresponding spikes) and having started traveling for vacation.

This is a strange virus, there is something else going on causing lower levels of immunity to have a stronger impact on cases than the naive math would suggest.

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#139

Post by standardUser » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 11:16 AM UTC

hatenberg wrote: post #135

standardUser wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though it has not been conclusively proven, literally all signs point to meanginful immunity and virtually no signs point to the opposite. Dozens of vaccines are being developed on this assumption, and there have been zero confirmed instances of reinfection of a fully recovered individual.

This comment has not aged well at all with several study preprints released in the last 12h indicating rapid loss of immunity and secondary infections

My comment has held true for 5 months and I have not seen or heard anything to convince me otherwise. Link? Or just more random media reports?

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#140

Post by standardUser » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 11:18 AM UTC

dwaltrip wrote: post #124

standardUser wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though it has not been conclusively proven, literally all signs point to meanginful immunity and virtually no signs point to the opposite. Dozens of vaccines are being developed on this assumption, and there have been zero confirmed instances of reinfection of a fully recovered individual.

I agree, I think there is likely meaningful immunity. But, it is very much up in the air on how long that immunity will last. SARS immunity lasts a few years (1-3 years I believe). On the other hand, several extant coronaviruses contribute to the common cold, and my understanding is that immunity for these is only a few months or less. This is partly why one can catch a cold multiple times in a year.

It's also worth remembering that the common cold has many different sources, and only some of those are coronaviruses.